Megan Alder, my fellow former bandmate in The Jackalopes and a good friend of mine has launched her site containing her entire discography on Bandcamp. Over the summer she gave me material to use in my first experiment with my recording equipment. She let me record demos of songs for Make No Show. When explaining the concept behind the song, she explained to me that many of her songs are inspired her experiences which play in her head like scenes from a movie. Despite some of the strong emotions connected with these songs and the difficulty of letting go of those feelings, she is "too fair to even blame" the subjects of her songs and she stays above the drama by trying to "make no show."
While there are numerous pops and clicks that come from the failures of my equipment, the demos give you hints into what has already happened in Megan's life and show you the potential of what these songs could become. I think it shows character that she has released these songs despite the flaws in the recordings. Rather than creating a picture perfect image to fans, she is allowing others to see the true essence of her recordings: the stories of her life.
Megan's website includes an album of songs she recorded in 2007 before she left for Italy as a foreign-exchange student during her senior year of high school. Many of the songs on Make No Show were written during Megan's time overseas.
Her discography also includes an five song EP that she recorded in 2006 with longtime collaborator, Holly Keene. Both Holly and Megan used to spend a lot of time with The Speak Easy back in the day and I will always consider both of them part of our family of Gettysburg musicians.
While a variety of people claim to have coined my nickname, Turbo was initially an insult to my reaction time in sports and fast talking, which some people respond to about as quickly as I respond to a sport. Instead of allowing another name bring the taunts that you can imagine my last name used to induce (even though I will always pride myself as the only boy in my family to continue the Small name), I decided to embrace the name as a new identity and a rap alias that explains my fast rapping that some never catch on with.
These were two very different comments from the same friend of mine (who shall remain anonymous for the sake of remaining civil and not using this blog as a bully-pulpit). It's a wonderful example of how in the attempt to assert the identity (or shamelessly self-promote), one can unknowingly disregard and hurt the feelings of others. The critique of my behavior was probably one of the most spot on criticisms I've received of my work. It shows how easily miscommunication in the modern era can create conflicts.
While taking pride in oneself may be perceived as an arrogant exercise of self-indulgence in a virtually masturbational culture, I take a cue from many of my heroes in embracing a new identity, one that refuses to be defined by outsiders. Consider it more of an alter-ego than the form of braggadacio that Muhammad Ali perfected. Not allowing others to define you does not mean one should fail to listen to what you can learn from others or that one believes they are always right, failure to listen to others creates a self-absorbed personality that deludes the individual to the point of harming oneself, something I know I do just as often as anyone else, which is a lot.
The assertion of identity is a form of self-respect that commands others to treat you as their equal but you have to earn it through making an earnest effort of understanding others without your own biases getting in the way. Even with this knowledge, we should assume we know nothing and reserve judgments until we hear from other's experiences while drawing from our own, this is something I intend to work towards diligently for the rest of my life.
Bob "Bob The Sound Guy" Ranalli is a man to whom I owe a large amount of my musical beginnings. He ran sound for the majority of my gigs with The Jackalopes and when Bob ran the boards, we knew we were going to sound good. He apprenticed under his father who started Ranalli's Music Service in Philadelphia in 1959 which would eventually become Noteworthy Music in Gettysburg, PA. The majority of my musical instrument repairs have come from the "master instrument repairman" himself or his many talented employees, some of whom taught me some of my first guitar lessons. His store is the definitive epicenter for Gettysburg musicians.
Anyways, I highly recommend following his website, www.bobthesoundguy.com. His knowledge of everything from live sound to instrument repair to recording equipment will be a valued asset to any musician attempting to find their way to their musical objectives.
I first found this video this summer when I was up way too late in Belgium with my family. It's a protest movie made in 1969 and dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr. after his assassination that year.
Freedumb: What happens when you give people the ability to create with no purpose for creating anything. Our hipster-nihilism has filled our culture with nothingness to the point of constant hypocrisy and it stinks like hippies hitchhiking to the next Bonnaroo.
This semester in my Asian Thought and Behavior class I have dealt with the question of how to bridge the gap between groups of people who are divided by their differences yet face so many of the same struggles. Asia's diverse assortment of races, religions, cultures and nationalities recognize similar truths in the world. They explain the difficulty of fully understanding the world with all its joys and all its sufferings. Despite these similarities, the diversity of Asia leaves almost every decision up for the debate of differing viewpoints and when this happens it becomes difficult to determine who to believe is telling the truth.
It's hard to meditate in the middle of all this fussing and fighting.
The Boxcar Children had a house concert this weekend before the Temple holiday break. Here's video to let you know how the festivities went. You know the deal by now... more videos on YouTube.
Jack Kerouac, the reluctant founder of the Beat Generation, explains that the repressive values of the previous generation have caused his generation to be "beaten down." The Beatnik interpretation of Buddhist teachings highlights the difficulties of interpreting religions from other cultures without the context of one's own culture creating conflict. The Beats use arguments within Buddhism to rationalize their place within American society. Though they recognize the reality of Siddhartha Gautama's Four Noble Truths, they fail to follow the Eightfold Path by breaking the fifth precept of Buddhism, which forbids drinking intoxicating liquors.
The nature of religion is to explain and rationalize the improbable nature of the universe and palliate the conflict between self and this nature. Certain facets of humanity are consistently recognized as the root of said conflict. Music, on the same note, is an individual's attempt to reconcile the self with reality, and has followers that use lyrics to determine moral codes. Given their similar functions and mollifying effects, as well as the rights outlined in the First Amendment, music ought to be exempt from censorship the same way religion is in the United States.
Edited by Elaine Steese
Special Thanks to Richard Libowitz
That's proof the cipher went until the street lights turned on today.
Here's a video for your enjoyment. The healthiest portion of all of this is yet to be loaded, I need to cut up some sections to make them fit on YouTube. I wish I had Final Cut on my computer.
There was also a flash mob that showed up at the beginning of the cipher...
Michael James Stewart, the MC more commonly known as Mic Stew, never seems more centered than when he finds himself in the middle of a cipher on Temple University's campus.
No verse is ever the same for most MCs that attend the weekly cipher but Stewart remains one of the undisputed favorites at the event called Freestyle Fridays.
"Watching Mic Stew rap is like watching dominoes fall,” fellow cipher participant Gary “Verbatum” Jones said. “You know it's gonna be cool to watch, but every time you're amazed at how they're arranged. He was the one who encouraged me to rap and I'm forever grateful for that."
Stewart's stream of consciousness while he raps is constantly tuned to his immediate environment and his audience. He projects his voice confidently while uniting the attention of a cipher. His hands fly with smooth exaggeration as he responds to his immediate surroundings while maintaining a narrative that reflects careful mediation and meditation.
“Sometimes when Mic's rapping he'll close his eyes and start to wave his hand around like he's writing a verse,” Matt “EMC Karma” Berman said. “He's pulling words out from past thoughts and refocusing them into his surroundings.”
“It sounds a little dramatic but I don't think I ever wanted to be a rapper. I think I was a rapper.” Stewart said. “I used to talk to myself a lot but in my head I'd be like—normally you'd run through how your day might go or how a conversation with someone you're about to talk to might go but when I was like fourteen or fifteen, I started freestyling instead of that. For about three years I did that, just freestyling in my head at all times. I started freestyling over hip hop songs that I liked. So it kinda chose me, I don't think that I chose it.”
While hip hop may have found Stewart, he chose to take the initiative to develop his abilities through self diligence. Stewart says being an MC is a matter of hard work and patience. He tries to write a verse every day. He began to practice his craft over the beats of other more well known rappers.
“The first beats I started rapping over were from Lil' Wayne's Tha Carter I. I would listen to what he was doing and I'd rap like him but make up my own words.”
Stewart eventually felt that Lil' Wayne's music did not speak to his experiences the same way other forms of hip hop did.
“A year later I got tired of that style of music I started listening to a lot of Black Star, Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli are tight.” Stewart said. “It appealed to me more consciously. It got me thinking more. It was thought provoking. I feel like any human can get down with this. You don't have to live a certain way to get what they're saying.”
Growing up in Royersford, Pennsylvania, Stewart had a different experience growing up than his rapping idols. Stewart started out rapping at local coffee shops like Steel City in Phoenixville, PA.
“I was like the only one rapping, everyone else was pretty much playing folk music.” Stewart said. “Not to toot my own horn but they loved me because I was different. They didn't expect me to do what I did, let alone as well as I did.”
Stewart contends that life is a matter of balance. He said he stumbled across the concept as he constructed his first mixtape, The Equilibrium.
“When I was in high school I was writing The Equilibrium, I didn't know it was called the Equilibrium and I didn't know I was writing an album but I was,” he said. “All my writtens from high school carrying over into my freshman year of college went into my first project. I wrote most of that when I was 17.”
He understand the act of balance best from dealing with differing viewpoints amidst his parents divorce.
“They divorced when I was very young. So they were single, I saw them each alone, never doing anything together.”
Stewart learned not to favor one parent to the other, understanding both parents points of view.
“My dad is a Christian. He's a pretty well convicted Christian. He tries to do what's right. He's a stand up guy.” Stewart said
“I'm not a gospel rapper, I'm not a Christian. I know Christianity very well, I've read a large portion of the Bible. I understand very well a lot of the moral principles of the Bible but I'm not a Christian. I don't go to church. I don't know that I've been saved. I've formed my own spiritual understanding.”
Stewart says as an artist and as a person he has “general goodwill towards people” but he is not afraid to speak his mind on an issue. While Stewart respects his father's religious beliefs, he finds validity in his mother's perspective. He describes his mother as “hard-working.”
Stewart credits his mother with his willingness speak his mind without caring what someone else thinks of him. “I want to set an example for people but I'm not afraid to tell it like it is and call people out.”
“I guess my mom, she's pretty much just plain speech, she'll tell you like it is, sometimes she's got a dirty mouth.” Stewart said.“That kind of melted with my dad always trying to be a stand up dude in front of me. Overall they're very good people and that's where a lot of my conscious content will come from.”
Through balance Stewart has learned to appreciate the viewpoints of others. encouraging others to learn to express themselves like he has.
“There's different world religions all over the place and often times we kill each other in the name of God more than the name of the devil. Any good person who practices religion will tell you that this isn't God's work, that's the devil.”
After finding his voice in The Equilibrium, Mic Stew sought out the voices of others. He listens “Sometimes you'll listen to me and it's like it's a different person.” The result was The Equilibrium II: Ugly.
“The whole thing was that I felt I was coming into myself as an MC. I felt like there was nothing I couldn't do but it wasn't channeled energy, it was sporadic energy. So one song to the next, I sound like a different person. On a lot of them, in the delivery I'm just screaming, some of the rhyme schemes are deeply intricate, five syllable rhyme schemes, fast as shit,” Stewart said. “I was just spaz-ing out I felt like the ugly duckling. That's why it's called ugly. I felt like I was a basketball player who just found out that he could dunk so he goes to the court and just crosses people, jamming on everyone. It's just a little reckless, a place for me to dump all that unadulterated Mic Stew.”
Here's a link to a video of Rashid Zakat's that's a classic Mic Stew spaz-out.
The "unadulterated Mic Stew" is not the stereotypical 8-Mile battle rapper ready to cut down opponents by exploiting their weaknesses. He embraces the goodness in others while asking them to question themselves. He speaks in language his audience can understand to explain his perspective while staying true to himself.
“When I explain things, I explain them in terms that I think all people can understand rather than leaning on the Gospel or the Quran or something like that. No matter what religion you practice there is a moral to be gained and you can translate it into your own moral fabric. It helps me stay centered when telling my story.”
He understands that his story is not the only one that matters. Just as much as he tries to teach others lessons through his verses, he listens to other's words intently while they speak, searching as if he's a chef learning the ingredients to his next recipe.
“I'd rather just appreciate them all for the wisdom that they hold and appreciate every person for the soul that they are inherently given.” Stewart said. “I don't really concern myself with semantics or which god I pray to. The one god, the universe, the soul is what governs us all. The way that manifests itself in the music is I think of a universal appeal.”
Universal appeal is a necessary thing in a world where everyone has their music on the internet. Stewart recognizes the advantages and disadvantages of the reality of the self-promoting musician.
“I think it's good and bad at the same time. What you're getting with the accessibility of production, is you're getting a constant flow of artists so it's almost cheapening the material,” Stewart said. “I could be horrible at what I do and create an album on my own and go and hand it out. So when you give people a CD now, they laugh rather than being intrigued because everybody's got a CD. Everybody's a rapper. There are thousands of us and there are probably only hundreds that are worth listening to. So that kind of thing has almost taken the potency out of doing it for yourself.”
Stewart understands he is one voice in a group of many equals. His approach to master his craft rather than expanding his ego.
“I don't advertise the fact that I rap, so by the time they know they've heard me do it and most people show love,” Stewart said. “It's wonderful that I can just sit in a room with a microphone. I think good music or good art will always find its audience, it'll always find its fire. So I keep making it, keep pushing it.”
Stewart's ultimate goal with music is as an expression of his soul, rather than the pursuit of fame, fortune, and fabricated persona. His music seeks to share common experiences with his friends, family, and audience. He does not deny that he wishes for acceptance for his peers.
“When I die or when I'm gone, be it an untimely death or at a ripe old age, I want people to say that I 'never didn't bring it.' If you go to a Mic Stew show, you saw a Mic Stew show every time at every place, whether I was sick, whether I was pissed off, I brought it.”
Though Mic Stew is still bringing in material for his next mixtape, his efforts towards the Mic Stew show may take a backseat to recording with his band, The Glass Ceiling, founded with guitarist Jules “Faze Two” Roldan and bassist Adam Willeta. Stewart does not mind committing himself the communal cause.
“We were just writing it so fast, we were all so driven. It was like 'this band's gonna actually do something,'” Stewart recalls. “We're all working, we're all hungry and we get along well. The Glass Ceiling is coming together better than anything I've ever been a part of.”
Stewart thinks they will push The Glass Ceiling into breaking barriers, which he continues to do by participating with his audience rather than at them. He is the product of the modern music era, where the line between fan and friend have become blurred.
“I have stuff you can dance to, I have stuff you can just nod your head to, I have stuff that's kind of boring but just take off that shell and try to get into what I'm doing. What I want to bring to people when I do that is all of the facets of my life. Don't just come to my show to get hype or to listen to an intelligent lecture on gentrification-- come to my show to break down your walls,” Stewart said. “Take off your skin, your shell and have a genuine good time listening to music that I want to share.”
Stewart wants to bring his audience together. He asks them to forget their pride and their sense of self, hoping that they dare to share the truth.
“I want my experiences to come out purely because I feel if I share purely and truly my experiences then you'll be able to relate to them. Don't necessarily bias it with your own personal experience.”
After my struggle this past summer to find hip-hop friendly venues in Gettysburg, I never thought there would be a place for a hip hop show in my hometown. However, last night I was proven wrong by The Nothing at their "A Little Thanks Given" concert at the Ragged Edge, a coffee shop typically more accustomed to singer-songwriters than DJs and MCs. The Speak Easy has played a few open mics at the Ragged Edge before but we never got a crowd quite as hype as what The Nothing got to see last night.
I had my camera off for the beginning of Mar's introduction to this next song, "There Ain't No Love," and I really regret that because it was best song of the set in my opinion. Essentially, Mar said he was watching Oprah one day and saw her talking about a list of the happiest countries in the world and America was not very high on the list, in fact we did not even break into the top ten. He said that with the amount of wealth and prosperity we have in America, we should have health care for everyone that needs it and education for anyone that wants it.
Mar said he wasn't trying to be negative. Judging from the crowd's response to his song, he had no real reason to worry about ruining the good times. While a lot of political hip hop songs gets panned for being too preachy or angry, I thought Mar's song struck a good tone with an audience that could appreciate the substance of Mar's material. The song's straightforward message energized a crowd that had taken a little extra time to warm up. I think part of this was because the three MCs were on the floor with the audience. I even had to stand on top of a chair to get these videos. While the crowd was mostly still, occasionally bobbing their heads or raising their hands in the air, they were keenly focused on every word from the group.
I think the video really reflects how well their mix turned out. The show, which was supposed to start at 7, was delayed about a half hour for the sake of perfecting the mix. With most hip hop shows, I usually hear someone complain about how bad mixes make it impossible to understand a word the musicians are saying, even some of the best MCs can have bad mixes. When I saw the Wu-Tang Clan at second day in New York for Rock The Bells 2007, the mix was terrible; the instrumentals were too soft and it made the group sound like they were just shouting. But when I saw them at the Trocadero Theatre last year the mix was perfect and they could exhibit their mastery of their craft. Even artists like the Wu can get ruined by a bad mix and The Nothing showed they knew how to run things themselves.
TIME ran an excellent interview with Wynton Marsalis about his Blues Symphony show, which intends to blend classical string music with the rugged sound of the blues. Here's a few things in the interview that stuck out to me, especially in light of the ideas presented in W.E.B. DuBois's discussion of "sorrow songs" in The Souls of Black Folk.
What does the blues mean to you emotionally? Everything comes out in blues music: joy, pain, struggle. Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance.
You've described rap music as the "repetition of the minstrel show." What do you mean by that? Look at it yourself. Put on a video. If you look at it, you can tell me what it means.
In case you live under a rock, every Friday Temple students gather at the Bell Tower outside Paley Library to rap, sing, dance, play instruments, or anything else your soul desires. They call it the Freestyle Friday ciphers. These guys are real motivated cats, many are making music all over the place.
With so many people in the cipher, it becomes difficult to track down every MC that comes to the cipher and find out what other music they are producing. The Turbo Times wants to change that... so here's the beginning of an attempt to centralize the work of those musicians.
Next to Verbatum in the videos is Aime, who's music I still haven't found online yet, but he is featured on a song with Verbatum called "Lazy Afternoon" on Jones' myspace.
Mic Stewart's band GuerillaFunk has been playing gigs around Temple a lot recently. They've been hitting up house parties and shows at Maxis.
DJ B Free posts his beats for others to use on his Facebook page.
Lee G and Delon create an interesting duo. Delon mostly makes beats but his surreal half-rap half-poetry style is always a favorite when he makes an appearance. I really regret the fact that I haven't made it to one of Lee G's backyard bashes yet. Anyways, their website is right here.
Faze Two plays guitar in GuerillaFunk and is a truth-telling cipher regular. He's also got a group called the Dead End Kids. The Alien Architect rocked the second half of the cipher today with a guitar in hand but didn't get any face time for the camera. His music is here.
That's all I've got for now... don't feel offended if I didn't feature you in this article, email me at turboverbal@hotmail.com or contact me any other way you can if you want your music on full display.
In a series of strange occurrences on April Fool's Day 2008, Chris Malo, the editor-in-chief of mixtape magazine Foundation, found himself at the other end of a Lil Wayne rant against mixtapes. After leaving the awkward encounter at the star's Atlanta mansion, Malo knew he had valuable material but he also knew he had to use it wisely.
Although Foundation started as one of the get-rich-quick schemes pitched to Malo by his partner, B. Mack,Malo is more concerned with the editorial side of the magazine than the business end of things. Despite his idealistic approach, Malo had to weigh the business consequences as well as the ethical complications for “pissing off the biggest guy.”
Despite Lil Wayne's hatred for mixtape Djs, he considers himself the Arthur Nobel of mixtapes. His comparison is right in that he detonates the competition by dropping multiple "bombs" of mixtapes and stealing beats from well... everyone. He then honors the people who make mixtapes, except instead of handing out money and peace prizes, he sues them.
“We're concerned about our integrity but we also have a 'fuck you' attitude towards a lot of stuff,” Malo said. Lil Wayne's manager said Wayne was sorry but he still would not grant another interview to Malo. Malo had to consider whether going forward with the material was worth risking access.
R.E.M., Pearl Jam, and Billy Bragg have filed a request under Freedom of Information Act as part of the national "Close Gitmo Now" campaign, asking whether their songs were used in the interrogations of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
CNN reports that "The FOIA requests stem from testimony of former Guantanamo prisoners that heavy metal, rock, and rap music -- even children's tunes -- were part of interrogation techniques." The Independent reports that music from "AC/DC, Britney Spears, the Bee Gees and Sesame Street were played at an ear-splitting level to break terrorist subjects."
"The fact that music I helped create was used as a tactic against humanity sickens me. We need to end torture and close Guantanamo now." - Tom Morello, guitarist of Rage Against The Machine
PHILADELPHIA- While many Temple students awaited the much-hyped Asher Roth and Lupe Fiasco Homecoming concert at the Liacouras Center last Saturday, a smaller audience of students witnessed a very different concert a few blocks away in the stairwell of the Student Activity Center (SAC).
Photo Credit: Bryan Mann
The Boxcar Children, an acoustic “urban folk” band of Temple students, organized and performed at a concert alongside another Philadelphia favorite, boog, on the fourth floor of a stairwell in the SAC a few hours before the hip hop homecoming concert.
Photo Credit: Kristen Lynn
The Saturday show was originally planned to occur at the Russel H. Conwell Founder's Garden on Temple's campus but the weekend's rainy weather forced the musicians to improvise a new location quickly. The band alerted attendees through their Facebook page to relocate the performance to the top stairwell in the SAC.
“The location of the show was really great in haphazard kind of way because the stairwell was like this natural auditorium.” said Temple history major Alex Weigard. “The echoes reverberated all over the place.”
"The venue and the weather outside added even more poetry to what was already a beautiful event," Temple political science major Beth Cozzolino said. "Boxcar Children's synergy was remarkable, the sound was a three dimensional tapestry of melody."
The show started at 3 p.m. with an opening performance from singer-songwriter duo Conor Mcalarney and Ella Coffin. Shortly after, Kyle Simmons, better known as boog, began his set with a haunting version of Michael Jackson's “Billie Jean.”
Using his bare fingers on a guitar and his voice, boog, the self described “bastard child of the Philadelphia folk scene,” filled the stairwell his original sound. Zachariah Beaver of The Boxcar Children, a collaborator with boog on his recently released demo, assisted boog's set with rhythmic accompaniment on a simple snare drum with brushes.
After boog's set, Boxcar Children member Jon Vidumskay played harp with percussionist Jeffrey Sacks-Wilner as the rest of the group climbed the stairway to the stage to begin their set with the folk song “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” a vocal call-and-response between guitarist and singer, Kierstin Siegl, and the rest of the nine-member group with each member contributing to the full harmonies. The set proceeded with an original song with full instrumentation sung by mandolin player, Ziggy Gamble.
The Boxcar Children began as The Noble Womanizers last year as founders Beaver, Siegl, and Gamble were incoming freshmen at Temple University. The band started as a small trio performing around Temple's campus with unique instruments like mandolins, ukeleles, banjos, and a banjolele (a mixture of a banjo and ukelele), as well as more traditional instruments like guitars and drums.
The band's instrumentation became more elaborate as the group grew with members, adding percussionist Sacks-Wilner and harpist Vidumskay as well as violinist Andrew Yang, baritone ukelele player Justin Patrick Foley, and rhythm guitarist Christie Offenbacher.
“The size of the group gives us a really good dynamic. I feel like the violin and the harp sound like a string section of an orchestra,” percussionist Sacks-Wilner said. “With that we can mix classical music with a folk sound and I think that's what brings out the beauty of the music. The beauty of the past mixed with the beauty of the present.”
The audience seemed to agree with Sacks-Wilner's assessment of the music's "beauty."
“They really played like a folk orchestra,” said Weigard, “that gave me goosebumps.”
Tonight at 5 PM the Under The Radar program at Temple WHIP Radio had my friend, boog, perform a small live set in the studio. This brightened up my rainy day. Hear the posted set at the Under The Radar podcast here.
boog's new demo: five tracks by boog on his own four-track mixer. Hear it here.
Time ran a nice Q&A with RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan today. They spoke about his new book, The Tao of Wu. Here's a video of RZA on the Colbert Report last night too.
I think ?uestlove's answers here help us understand the balance musicians have to make between maintaining a livelihood while also maintaining a dedication to their art style. I'll have more detailed thoughts on this soon in an editorial I'm working on.
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